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Showing posts from January, 2016

Marching on the Trees

One of the repeated refrains from the narrative historical sections of the Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) is that God must go before the people of Israel for them to have victory. Many Psalms praise this facet of God’s activity in the history of Israel and some lament God’s apparent absence from Israel’s political and military challenges. But the core conviction remains the same: God must be present with his people for them to succeed in doing what God brought them into the land to accomplish. One narrative section stood out to me recently—for in it I was reminded of an aspect of the reality of world I easily forget (or if not forget, then do not take seriously in the stress of the moment). Tucked away in a section describing some of King David’s activities soon after becoming officially recognized as Israel’s King (by all 12 tribes) is a record of conversations between God and David regarding going to war with the Philistines. The Philistine’s heard that David had become Ki